IT’S no longer news that the dreaded killer pandemic, popularly known as COVID-19 has again reared its head in faraway China, thus throwing the global community into another frenzy.
The latest outbreak, which was discovered towards the end of last year, has started generating reactions from countries around the world with some wasting no time in rolling out precautionary measures that will prevent the spread of the disease.
Among such proactive countries that have hit the ground running through the introduction of preventive measures, include the United States of America, which has made it mandatory that all travelers coming from China must to show a negative COVID-19 test result before coming to the country.
According to the US federal health officials, passengers flying to the US from China, besides needing to get a test not more than two days before flying into the country, must equally present proof of the negative test to their airline before boarding.
The tests which can be either a PCR test or an antigen self-test administered through a telehealth service, is also extended to passengers coming from Hong Kong and Macau, as well as passengers flying through popular third-country gateways, including Seoul, Toronto and Vancouver.
In a similar manner, Japan is also demanding that individuals travelling from China into its country must be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival just as the Indian authorities have announced that travellers from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand will have to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test on arrival to India and quarantine if they test positive.
As expected, many other countries will soon roll out their own rules guarding against the importation of the pandemic into their domains in view of the dangerous implications of being negligent may have on their citizens and the entire system.
It is on record that the previous outbreak of the disease did not only cut short the lives of millions of people, but inflicted economic calamity on businesses across the world, a disaster many countries and businesses are yet to fully recover from.
Nigeria like other countries during the previous outbreak had its own share of the disaster particularly as it affected the aviation sector with airlines and other relevant businesses packing up or drastically reducing their workforce.
Therefore, for Nigeria not to be caught off guard this time and considering the large population of Chinese doing business in Nigeria with the huge number of Nigerians shuttling between the Asian country and Nigeria for business activities, the government needs not be told of the necessity to bring back all those previous COVID-19 measures that were recently relaxed.
The need to alert the government to wake up is not far from the recent statement attributed to the Coordinator of the Presidential Steering Commitee on COVID-19, Dr Muktar Muhammed that the federal government was not considering imposing mandatory COVID testing or restrictions on travellers from China until there is the need for it.
The question is if a Nigeria bound passenger afflicted by the disease inform the committee of their coming ahead to give room for the appropriate time for Nigeria or the committee to roll out such preventive measures.
The fact that the committee admitted that Nigeria was at the risk of a fresh surge of the virus should have been enough warning for it to urgently tighten up safety measures across all airports and other outlets where foreigners can access the country.
The seeming silence of the committee and the government towards the fresh outbreak is an invitation to an avoidable calamity that may rear its head in the face of the ongoing lackadaisical attitude being displayed even as other countries have started taking precautionary measures.
In order not to be caught napping as it happened with the importation of Ebola virus into the country through the Lagos airport by the late Liberian born American diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, the government should, without any delay, swing into action by reintroducing the hitherto relax measures.
It will therefore be suicidal for government and the committee to continue to underrate the danger inherent in throwing open its airports to passengers from the affected countries without having in place preventive measures.
No Nigerian deserves to die due to negligence and it will be disastrous for the country to choose not to learn from bigger countries like US, which with all its solid health paraphernalia, swiftly reacted.
